Snark's SECOND Law of Fanfic (formerly the First)

[athelind]

From FurryMUCK, this morning:

normanrafferty tries to remember the review he read of 'Torchwood'. "I think it said, 'Is it possible for something to be new material and fan-fiction at the same time?'"

Oh, you betcha. Let's codify this, in fact:

Snark's First Second Law of Fanfic (a.k.a. "Running the Asylum"):
A sufficiently established franchise is indistinguishable from fanfic.

When a fictional franchise has lasted long enough to induct its fandom into the ranks of its professional creators, the distinction between Canon and Fan Fic erodes. The new wave of creators start sneaking Fanon into official sources. Ret Cons abound. Writers will revisit old stories, instilling far more self-indulgent detail into the retellings than ever appeared in the original.

In short, the Inmates are Running The Asylum.

Sometimes, this can bring fresh, new life to the franchise. Other times, the same kind of in-fighting that erupts in fannish circles will play out between creative teams -- but now, the factions are all armed with Canon.

Comments

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

In this case, it cheapened it. The Mythos used to be be something scary, as in cosmic paranoia scary. It's been overused and misused so often through various fan incarnations and interpretations and re-interpretations that now the most successful part of the media franchise is the license used to sell plush toys.

The same thing happened to all the famous Universal Monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, etc.), and then there were the sequels, and then the homage sequels to the sequels, and then the Abbott & Costello versions (A&C Meet Frankenstein, A&C Meet Dracula, etc.) and now that all the horror and terror have been completely wrung out are all only used to sell kiddie breakfast cereal.

::B::

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Alas, the real Shark Jump for the Mythos was early on, when Derleth snagged all of HPL's old notes and started doing "post-humous collaborations" that imposed a Good Scary Creepy Gods vs. Bad Scary Creepy Gods dualism on Lovecraft's Vast Indifferent Fortean Cosmos.

By the way, I wuv my widdle plush Cthulhu, and will brook no insult to his fuzzy little squamous head.